The inaugural Rugby Championship starts on Saturday with the organisers trumpeting that the tournament is, outside the World Cup, the ultimate test in rugby.

A recent report into the sport's finances showed how the game in the north was far more lucrative than that in the south: bigger sponsorship and television deals and larger crowds. The Six Nations can claim to be the oldest and most popular annual tournament in the world but the southern hemisphere is laying claim to the quality title.

"The Rugby Championship is an annual contest between the best-of-the-best in world rugby," said Greg Peters, the Sanzar chief executive, pointing out that the four participants are ranked first, second, fourth and seventh in the world. "It involves nations who have won six of the seven World Cups, while Argentina will offer a new dimension, playing an exciting and different brand of rugby to the other three teams."

Different to New Zealand and Australia but the Pumas share with South Africa a penchant for more traditional aspects of the game: the rolling maul remains a thing of beauty in Tucumán and beyond; their heroes are rough hewn rather than sculpted.

Their first match is, fittingly, against South Africa in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon, a few hours after the battle between Australia and New Zealand in Sydney. The pace of the second is unlikely to threaten that of the first and of the old Tri-Nations teams, South Africa were the least impressive in their summer series against Six Nations opposition.

They were under a new coach, Heyneke Meyer, and they did have injury problems, but the functional way Morne Steyn operates at outside-half leaves Bryan Habana an extra for the most part. In contrast, New Zealand and Australia play with width and the manner in which the All Blacks destroyed Ireland in the opening half of the third Test was exhilarating.

Meyer was this week ruminating on how back rows will look in the future. Never mind the influence of Richie McCaw, David Pocock, Thierry Dusautoir and Sam Warburton for the four countries who reached the semi-finals in last year's World Cup, the former Leicester director of rugby, who is without the injured flanker Heinrich Brussow, believes the days of teams operating with a fetcher are reaching their end.

"The game has got a lot quicker so you need more athletic players," he said. "It has become so because there is not as much competing on the ground and you need more than one guy in that area. If you look at the stats, most of the hookers have been the ball-stealers because usually the guy comes blind and the hooker is defending there.

"I think it will be interesting to see how they referee the breakdown because suddenly even New Zealand are … I won't say moving away but there are not a lot of specialist open-side flankers there. If you look at their top sides even the Chiefs didn't really have a specialist open-side. I have always believed in having a specialist there but it depends how they are going to referee it."

Meyer's view is all the more interesting because one of the reasons South Africa's defence of the World Cup ended in Wellington at the quarter-final stage was that they were unable to combat – Brussow was injured 20 minutes in – Pocock at the breakdown.

They accused the referee Bryce Lawrence of allowing Pocock's continual infringing but South Africa lost a match they should have won because of their own failings rather than the official's. Australia, like New Zealand, have far more in the way of creative ability, and while Australia were outplayed by Wales for long periods in this summer's three-Test series, they kept their composure and shape and came up with winning scores.

The All Blacks will start as favourites, and not just because they are the World Cup holders. They won 10 of the 16 Tri-Nations titles and they were the only one of the competing sides to finish the series in credit: 50 victories in 72 matches compared with Australia's 29 and South Africa's 28.

They have lost experience in the second row with Brad Thorn and Ali Williams no longer in the squad and their back-up half-backs are raw but as long as McCaw and Dan Carter remain fit, they will be the most likely winners.

It will be a significant eight weeks for the Australia coach Robbie Deans. Victory over his native New Zealand on Saturday would relieve some of the pressure on him: his contract ends after next summer's series against the Lions, but while he has options behind, he is short at forward and has had to persuade the 36-year-old second row Nathan Sharpe to postpone his retirement.

Three of Argentina's first four matches are away and they face a test of endurance with a squad of less depth than the others. One feature of the tournament is that no venue will host more than one match: the Pumas will host matches at Mendoza, La Plata and Rosario.

The Rugby Championship will be played in three series of two rounds, like the group stage of the Heineken Cup except with a week's break after each of the first two batches. It will extend into October, stretching the season to nearly nine months with tours to Europe to follow. It will not be long before calls for a global season grow.